


Once Every Year

by ennedepaix



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennedepaix/pseuds/ennedepaix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange and sad how memories can fade but once a year, Draco tries to put things back in order.</p><p>Written for Celebration Challenge at hp_grows_up</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Every Year

Draco stirred uneasily from his sleep. Even before he woke up, he had a feeling of dread concerning the day before him. He opened his eyes to see Harry leaning over him, with a hand shaking his shoulder gently. 

“It’s Saturday, Draco. You need to get up.”

Saturday. That would explain the dread. Especially when Draco realised which Saturday it was. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, trying and failing to raise a small smile for Harry, who kissed his cheek.

“Morning,” Draco murmured, laying his hand on Harry’s stomach.

“Morning. Do you want to have some breakfast?”

“No.” To Harry, Draco sounded distracted. To Draco, Draco sounded as if his own voice was miles away. “No, I won’t be able to eat at all today.”

“It’ll be all right.”

Draco sighed. “Like it was last year and the year before? Like it has been for the last eleven years? No, Harry, it won’t be all right. It never is.”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“I know but this is one of the few things that can’t be made better. Even by you.”

Harry took a breath, opening his mouth to speak but then shook his head and left the room. Draco closed his eyes and the dread inside him multiplied tenfold when he remembered the extent of what would happen today. Visiting hours at St. Mungo’s started at half past nine and he needed to get there as early as he could get if he was going to try and make this easy for her. She was going to want to celebrate after all.

******* 

“How is she?”

“She had a bad night but seems better this morning. Further than that, nothing’s changed.” The nurse shook her head. “Still no change.” She watched the man in front of her take a moment to swallow and compose himself before he nodded, saying his thanks before he went into the room. Pansy was sitting on her bed, cross-legged, dressed in dark blue robes. Her hair was in perfect ringlets, her lips painted red, her hands folded delicately in her lap. She looked up.

“Hello, Pansy.”

“Why didn’t you come to see me yesterday, Draco?”

Draco wandered over to the window, looking out disinterestedly. “You know I only come on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Why would I have come yesterday?” he asked, patience etched in every syllable he spoke, wariness tingeing his tone.

“It was our anniversary. You should have come to see me. I had a card for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I waited until midnight but you didn’t come so I ripped it up. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all.”

“We could still celebrate, though. It doesn’t matter that it’s belated. I could ask for some champagne or something.”

“What is there to celebrate, Pansy?” Draco asked, finally turning from the window and facing Pansy.

“Our anniversary, I told you.”

“We’ve never had an anniversary, Pansy.”

“Don’t be silly. It was our one-year anniversary yesterday.”

“Pansy, do you want me to tell you the truth? You don’t like people lying to you, do you?” Draco asked. Pansy shook her head. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen, the same as you.”

“I’m twenty-nine. So are you.”

“What?”

“How long do you think you’ve been here?”

“A few days.”

“You’ve been here for eleven years. And once every year, you think it’s our one-year anniversary and I try to explain everything to you even though I know you’ll have forgotten by this time next year.”

“What do you mean, you try to explain?”

“Lots of things have happened since we were sixteen, Pansy. We aren’t together anymore, for a start. You broke up with me, do you remember?”

“No,” Pansy said weakly. “Why would I have done that?”

“You told me it wasn’t going to work. You told me we were only together because we were comfortable around each other and you were right. There was nothing between us except friendship. We stayed friends; the best of friends.”

There was a silence before Pansy asked, “Why am I here?”

“Do you want to know?” Draco moved to sit next to her on the bed and she looked at him imploringly. Pansy nodded.

“Tell me a story, Draco,” she whispered. “That’s the best way.”

“All right.” Draco took a moment before he began his story,

“Once upon a time, Pansy and I were in our sixth year of Hogwarts. We’d been a couple for just under a year; only a month or so short of a year. Pansy thought about lots of things over the Christmas holidays and decided we would be better off as just friends. When we returned to school, she told me and I agreed we didn’t need to be a couple to be close to each other. A few months after that, the war broke out and we both turned against our families. My mother came with me and your father with you because they didn’t want to be followers of Voldemort’s cause. Because of the war, we ended up spending a lot more time with people from the other houses. We had to put aside our differences and we found it easier than we had imagined. You made very good friends with Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley and I made friends with Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. 

“I told you everything, Pansy, all my secrets. You knew how my affection for Harry grew and how it eventually turned into something else. You were the person I went to when I had a problem or wanted to talk about things that were happening with Harry.”

“What sort of things happened with Harry?” Pansy asked, now laying her head in Draco’s lap. Draco smiled slightly and stroked her hair, pulling the ringlets gently so they straightened and recoiled.

“At first, not very much. We found things in common and spent more time together. We still argued sometimes but it was about silly things like Quidditch and whether cricket was invented by Muggles or Wizards. Things started to change mid-way through our seventh year. We were arguing and I told him to shut up. He told me to make him and I did.”

“How?”

“I kissed him.”

“Kissed him? What did he do?”

“Nothing. At least, I didn’t see him do anything because I ran away when I realised what I’d done. I didn’t speak to him for almost a week. I avoided contact with him but I watched him. He spoke a lot with Granger during that week and he was always frowning whenever she told him things in that murmuring way she has. He spoke to you as well and you didn’t tell me but I knew. Eventually, I worked myself up into such a frenzy about the whole situation that I couldn’t sleep. One night, nearly a week after I kissed him, he came to my bed. It was the dead of night and everyone else was asleep. I started telling him how stupid I was for what I’d done and how sorry I was and how he should hate me.”

“Did he hate you?”

“No. He didn’t say a word to me that night. He just put his hand over my mouth so I’d shut up and then he kissed my forehead. I think I was shaking. He climbed onto my bed and wrapped his arms around me.”

“Did you have sex with him?” Pansy asked bluntly.

“No. Lord knows I wanted to, so much, but it didn’t happen for almost two years. We just spent hours touching each other and kissing. It all felt so innocent I wanted to cry. When we fell asleep, I was worried I’d wake up and he’d be gone; I was worried it was a dream within a dream but it wasn’t. He was there when I woke up, holding me.”

“Why didn’t you have sex if you wanted it so much?”

“We were in a war, Pansy, and Harry was in more danger than anyone else. I had to be realistic. I didn’t want to have that much of him if I couldn’t have it forever. Besides, we were in the middle of a dorm and I’m quite fond of privacy.”

“I know.” Pansy tried to ignore the flood of memories that was pouring in as she listened to everything Draco said. She tried to ignore the way everything came in one huge, overabundant rush that she wasn’t sure she could withstand. She clenched her fingers around the fabric of Draco’s shirt unknowingly. “What happened after that?”

“For a few nights, it carried on the same. We didn’t mention it to anyone, not even each other. Eventually we spoke about it with each other and we decided we wanted to be together but that only a few other people should know.”

“Did I know?”

“Yes, you did. You were happy, darling; happy because I was happy. For about six months, we spent nearly every night together. Sometimes we didn’t even kiss each other; we just looked at each other. It was on one of those nights he told me he loved me. I said it back and I was being honest. I think I’d probably been in love with him longer than he had with me but I was too scared to say it first.” Draco paused, still stroking Pansy’s hair. “It was just our luck that the next day turned into the final battle. Harry went off to face Voldemort… He was so brave in front of everyone except me. When he was with me, he cried because he was so scared. He went, though, and he fought Voldemort while we all fought off the Death Eaters.”

“I can remember things, Draco. They cursed me, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why I’m here.”

“It is. They cursed you with a… memory blocker of sorts. It meant you wouldn’t be able to remember anything after a certain point. It’s not like _Obliviate_ because you still have the memories in your head but you need to be told they’re there.”

“Is that why I can remember certain things after you tell me about them?”

“That’s right. The thing is, after a year, you forget everything all over again and I have to tell you again. Once every year.”

“Once every year on the same day,” Pansy murmured. “Why today?”

“The curse made you revert to a time when you felt safe and you picked the last time you could specifically remember when we were still a couple. Because we broke up so close to what would have been our anniversary, you carried on from there and you honestly think we’re together. Every year when I have to tell you all this, you remember all the things from every other time I’ve visited you, every other day from the day you think it is onwards to today. Do you remember yet?”

“I think I do. I only have to be in St. Mungo's for one week a year; the week when I forget. The rest of the time I live with my father. I don’t like going out very much. You… You’re still with Harry. He took more than a year to fully recover from the war.” Pansy’s voice was small and wavered in a way that made Draco’s throat clench along with his heart. “Harry’s having your baby. Neville comes to see me every Monday and Friday. He married Hermione and she comes with him on Fridays. I’m their daughter’s godmother and they have a son as well. Ron Weasley is in America. He left when Ginny died. You come to see me on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Harry comes with you on Wednesdays and I like feeling the bump of the baby. It’s really starting to show now, isn’t it?”

Draco swallowed hard. “Yes, it is.”

“I remember lots of laughing. I remember you giving me lots of cuddles. I remember all the little things you told me about you and Harry. I remember how embarrassed he gets when he knows you’ve told me something about your sex-life.” Pansy smiled when she heard Draco chuckle. “I remember everything,” she said softly. 

“Do you remember how much I love you?”

“Yes. I love you, too.” Draco lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. They fell into silence until Pansy whispered, “I don’t want to forget again in a year’s time, Draco.”

“I know. I don’t want you to either. People are still working on ways to reverse the curse. They think it might not be too long now. There’s still time, Pansy, darling, don’t worry. Anyway, I’ll always be here to remind you.”

“I know you will.” Pansy lifted her head, sitting up to face Draco, letting him see for the first time that day the tears that had began to fall as soon as he started his story. “Even though it’s not our anniversary, I still feel like celebrating.”

“What’s to celebrate?”

“Everything else, Draco.” She smiled. “Everything else.”

******* 

The nurses let Draco stay later than they should. When he returned home, it was nearing eleven o’ clock at night and he found Harry in bed, trying in vain to keep his eyes open as he read a book. He smiled when Draco came into the room and put his book on the floor. He watched Draco undress and waited for him to join him in bed before he spoke.

“Are you all right, Draco?”

“Yes. I am. She took it well. It was surprising, to be honest. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning,” Draco said, kissing Harry gently. “What did you today?”

“Not a lot. Didn’t feel that great. Hermione came round to see me.” Harry paused, letting out a small moan as Draco’s lips travelled over his neck, as Draco’s hands travelled everywhere. “We’re going to hers for lunch next Sunday.”

“Fine.” Draco pushed Harry’s t-shirt up over his rounded stomach with one hand, venturing into Harry’s underwear with the other. Harry began to move his hips into Draco’s own as Draco’s hand worked inside his underwear.

“You… You were late this time.”

“I know,” Draco said, stealing a long and deep kiss, leaving Harry gasping. “We were celebrating.”

“Celebrating?”

“Yes. And she made me promise to have a little private celebration with you when I got home.”

“What does she want us to celebrate?”

“Everything, Harry. Just everything.”

_\- fin -_


End file.
